Fat Baby Football Snowboard Fall Shocker

Well, blog fans, it’s been a while since Sharpelog has been updated. We’d like to pretend that it’s because we’ve been phenomenally busy but to be honest, it’s all down to Jo being a bit lazy.

We won’t mention the Manchester derby, as it was clearly a blip in an otherwise constistently upwards trajectory, but it did mean that Ellie went to church with Aunty Bernadette. Now, I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen Omen, but Ellie had to leave early. Apparently it was the singing that she was upset with – which is a bit of a surprise, as you would have thought that if she can stand Jo’s singing a bit of religious blather wouldn’t phase her at all.

The family had been for a walk the day before up over Saddleworth Moors. It was a beautiful day, with the sky completely cloudless and views over Oldham all the way down to Manchester, and Rochdale all the way to...the far bit of Rochdale. Tim had to carry Ellie, who now weighs just enough to make walking up hills really, really difficult.

Actually her exact weight is 16lbs 1oz, which puts her in the ‘well fed’ zone. She’s looking cherubic at the moment, which is secret baby speak for ‘fat’. Whilst sadly unreported in the press, there appears to be a Hipp crisis in our area. There is no Hipp baby food to be found. Mothers and babies are besieging the few remaining outlets selling it and there will be riots in Sale before the week’s out. Miss Ellie has rejected Aptamil as an alternative, though SMA Gold appears to be hitting the spot for now.

Well, last week Ma & Pa Sharpe were up from the wild badlands of Norfolk to visit and iron shirts. After a brief feasibility study, Pa Sharpe has agreed to build a gate to replace the shoddy back gate currently in place. It’s all terribly exciting and once it’s in place, it’ll allow us to implement ‘Operation Reclaim’, which involves training the dog to go to the toilet with hitherto unseen accuracy so that the garden can recover.

Last weekend kicked off with Connie and Ellie taking Jo for a walk with Ms Finley and Buffy. Ms Walsh dropped by in the early evening; it’s not often Ms Walsh visits from the frozen wastelands of lower middle Lancashire, but as her latest target – sorry, I mean, eligible bachelor – resides in our neck of the woods she got changed at Chez Sharpe. A very nice cup of tea was had by all whilst Ms Walsh ran through her range of attire for the evening, selecting the red top and the black jeans...or something....Then Jo and Ellie took Tim to the pub for a couple of swift halves before dinner. Lovely.

Our new weekend resident, Dom, dropped by on Saturday. Whilst Jo and Ellie wasted their day on frivolities like walking the dog, Dom and Tim got down to the serious business of squeezing a couple of pints in before the United vs Arsenal game. Of course, United destroyed Arsenal so Dom and Tim went into Manchester, had a couple more and went for a Chinese for an executive banquet, though I’m not sure what was executive about it. Tim swore a lot whilst Dom worked out the vagaries of chopsticks.

Jo and Ellie went walking through the local park with the Speakman-Whitehead and Brisleys, who were visiting from the frozen wastes in the north. Then it was back to watch the Arsenal game on the telly, then round to the Speakman-Whitehead’s for a lovely dinner to talk houses, dogs and all things domestic.

Jo was up and out with Ellie and Connie on Sunday, meeting up with the Speakman-Whiteheads at Sale Water Park. Tim remained in bed, which sounds a bit lazy, but was actually medically necessary as Jo had banned him from the marital bed for being tipsy. Pah!

On Monday Ellie went swimming for the first time. She’s already better than her Dad. Lot’s of splashing around, including a bit of underwater action. Just like Das Boot. Without the Germans. Or the Uboat.

Jo went snowboarding today for the first time. Sam, Jo’s nephew, is an expert snowboarder who’s well used to getting air, grabs, 720s and various other hip sounding things. Well, that’s what he tells us but so far we’ve only seen him slide down the snowdome’s slope in Manchester. But even so, he was teaching Jo on the dry slope at Rossendale. There’s extensive footage of Jo falling over – on average she stayed on her feet for at least 8.23 seconds.